MENG MAGACH 6B 4th Part

MAGACH 6B BUILD

PART 4

The steps highlighted here are for the lower hull. They include the drivers hatch and periscopes, the belly pan, the hull deck and the rear portion of the hull.

First, the deck for the lower hull is 10 parts. It consists of two main parts; the forward part consists of the drives hatch and turret ring, and the aft portion is the engine cover. The balance of the pieces are the access panels to the engine compartment, this arrangement allows for tremendous detail to be molded into the individual pieces, so I wasn't too put out about the assembly. First, lets deal with the drivers hatch. On this model, the drives hatch can open, however, the tolerance on the hatch fittings was too tight to allow it to open and close freely. Based on this I decided to glue it closed.

The next thing to deal with was the drivers periscopes. There are clear plastic parts as periscopes that fit into holes around the drives hatch. There is one hole that accepts a stud on each periscope piece. However, the holes were too small and it took me more than an hour to widen them enough (laterally) to accept the periscopes. Before I mounted the periscopes, I used Vallejo Liquid mask on each front facing portion. I then painted each periscope with Tamiya clear blue. Each periscope has a cover so I glued those on after gluing the periscopes to the hull.

After gluing the forward and aft portions of the upper hull, the next step was to assemble the engine exhaust diffuser doors. These are two piece assemblies and are exceptionally molded, with zero fit problems. Once this was complete, the upper hull engine access panels needed to be installed, this was a total of eight pieces, and they all fit with no issues.

Once the upper hull was installed, it was time to install a nose piece to the lower hull that fits onto the lower front glacis plate. After that is installed then the belly pan gets installed. There were 6 pieces to glue to the belly pan. Two of the six pieces appear to be turnbuckles that attach to the rear hull.

To date, I am pleased with the detail and fit of this kit with the exception of the drivers hatch and its periscopes. The next steps will be assembly of the sponsons/fenders. and various upper hull details.

Cheers,

WL